About Us: Smartian's Story
Smartians is one of the few running Olympiad based community in Bangladesh. We like to think it more like a family than just a club. Our purpose is simple- to create the next generation International Science Olympiad medalists.
It’s true Bangladesh lacks some of the very crucial facilities for proper education and for Olympiads, yet it’s our goal, not just to survive but to thrive in Olympiads. We may not have the best arrangements, or a permanent location for arranging our classes, but we never let that become any excuse to give lectures and teach students how to solve problems.
Who are Behind Smartians?
Current Mentors
Golam Ishtiak
Having a passion for problem-solving, Golam Ishtiak began competing in the 2017 Physics Olympics. He developed a love for physics after learning about it academically. He has won the national physics Olympiad several times and represented Bangladesh in the 2019 Asian physics olympiad.
Several people, notably Sheikh Shafayat and Rashedul Islam of Smartitans of Science, have advised and assisted him since joining the physics olympiad community. He took part in the 2021 International Physics Olympiad as well as the 2020 International Distributed Physics Olympiad. In both of them, he received an honorable mention. Ishtiak earned an honorable mention at the 2022 Asian Physics Olympiad, falling short of bronze by only half a point. To date, this is the best performance by a student from Bangladesh in APhO. He was awarded the bronze medal at the 2022 International Physics Olympiad. In the 2023 International Physics Olympiad, he fell short of becoming only the third-ever silver medalist from Bangladesh by one point, earning another bronze medal.
He is the current president of the club.
Rashedul Islam
In 2017, Rashedul Islam began his path to the Physics Olympiad. The next year, he competed in the Asian Physics Olympiad and International Physics Olympiad, winning a bronze medal in the latter competition. He currently holds the status of Bangladesh’s youngest-ever IPhO bronze medalist. In the 2020 International Distributed Physics Olympiad and the 2021 International Physics Olympiad, he was awarded bronze and silver medals, respectively. He is one of Bangladesh’s two only silver He is one of Bangladesh’s two only silver medalists.
With three national physics Olympiad prizes and three international medals, he is one of the most talented members of the Smartians and Physics Olympiad community. Currently, he is pursuing his undergraduate studies at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT).
Md. Fahim Abrar
Md. Fahim Abrar commenced his Olympiad journey in 2013 by participating in Bangladesh Mathematics Olympiad. He was a Champion in the junior category in the 2016 BdMO National Round. Then he started participating in the Physics Olympiad being inspired by the lectures of Mahadi Masnad and Sheikh Shafayat. He won prizes three times in a row at Bangladesh Physics Olympiad National Round. He was also a member of the Asian Physics Olympiad 2019 Bangladesh Team. He bagged a bronze medal on his first ever IPhO in 2021. Later, he also participated in the 2022 and 2023 International Physics Olympiad and was awarded a bronze medal in both of them.
He is one of the key members of Smartians of Science now.
KM Meshkat
KM Meshkat started his journey towards the physics olympiad in 2018, for only his own interest in physics. He got his first success in science & olympiads that year by winning a national round prize in the A category. Next year he got selected for APhO 2019 which was the greatest learning opportunity for him. Until now he has got the national prize twice and mainly focused on the physics olympiad. By the learnings from his APhO teammates SK Shafayat, Imtiaz Tanweer, Rashed Islam, and Golam Ishtiak, he is going on. He participated in the 2022 International Physics Olympiad and was awarded an honorable mention. In 2023 IPhO, we again won an honorable mention, but this time missing bronze by 1.1 points.
Besides learning himself, he also has a personal interest in teaching. He was a key part of the online EM workshop by Smartians of Science.
Ahmed Saad Sabit
Sabit became aware of the presence of olympiads after the newsreels flooded with the news of Ahmed Zawad Chowdhury becoming the first Bangladeshi to win a gold medal at the International Mathematical Olympiad. Since then he has been participating in various olympiads and after tedious wins and losses eventually made it to the International Astronomy Olympiad Team of 2019. He likes to fiddle around with Physics and Mathematics from a young age with frequent displays of projects in Science Fairs. He participated in the 2023 International Physics Olympiad and was awarded an honorable mention. He is also one of the only three people from Bangladesh who have an honorable mention in APhO, which he achieved in 2023.
He likes to do Physics Problems and learn the way how math describes things work, write mathematical texts in LaTeX typesetting, and draw diagrams in Inkscape or TiKZ.
Rubayat Jalal Hridi
Rubayat was one of the earliest mentees when Smartians started its journey in its current name. She started her Olympiad career in 2015 by participating in Bangladesh Mathematical Olympiad. She won 4 times national prizes in Bangladesh Physics Olympiad and participated multiple times in National Math Camp and IMO team selection tests. She was the first Bangladeshi female to win a bronze medal in International Junior Science Olympiad 2017 and has been working as an academic team member of the Bangladesh Junior Science Olympiad since then. She got trained by Mahadi Masnad, Fahim Tajwar Swachchha and Mahmud Un Nobe. She was a member of the Asian Physics Olympiad 2019 and the International Distributed Physics Olympiad 2020 Bangladesh team.
She took some in-person classes in 2019 and is now overseeing the online activities of Smartians. She is currently pursuing her undergraduate studies at Reed College in Portland, USA.
Past Mentors
Mahadi Masnad
Md Mahadi Masnad was the person who started the tradition of organizing workshops in Rajshahi. The first workshop he arranged dates back to 10 years ago, in 2009; Mahadi himself was a student of class 11. Since then he has trained practically most of the Olympians afterwards in Rajshahi.
Mahadi Masnad was a member of the Bangladesh team which participated in the International Physics Olympiad
2011. His score in the theoretical exam is one of the highest among the Bangladeshi contestants till this date. After completing BSc at Bangladesh University of Engineering and Technology (BUET), he is now pursuing his graduate study at McGill University on Photonic Systems.
Smartians owe a lot to him. Prior to 2016, he himself arranged a lot of classes, often pouring money from his own pocket, and provided logistic support for taking our classes till September 2019. It is largely because of him that despite having a lot of disadvantages, Rajshahi still thrives in Olympiads. When he left Bangladesh in September
2019, he left an unfillable void for the Olympiad community in Rajshahi.
Fahim Tajwar
Fahim Tajwar is one of the most successful Olympians Bangladesh has ever produced. Directly trained under the guideline of Mahadi Masnad, Fahim Tawar represented the Bangladesh team in three Asian Physics Olympiads in 2014, ’15, and in’16. Fahim Tajwar participated International Physics Olympiad in 2016 and 2017. He got Bronze medals in both of them. Fahim Tajwar holds the record of on of the highest combined mark in IPhO among Bangladeshi contestants. He graduated from Stanford University with BS (with distinction, Mathematics) in 2022 and MS (Computer Science) in 2023. Currently, He is a Ph.D. Student at the Machine Learning Department of Carnegie Mellon University.
Fahim Tajwar was the trainer for most of the Workshop classes from 2014 to 2016. He was famous for his introductory calculus classes, and basic mechanics and electromagnetism classes. He still provides guidelines and oversees the activities of Smartians from San Francisco.
Sheikh Shafayat
Shafayat’s Journey for Olympiad started in 2016, under the guideline of both Mahadi Masnad and Fahim Tajwar Swachchha. . He won three consequent national prizes in Physics Olympiad and participated in two Asian Physics Olympiads in 2018, and 2019. Shafayat would (probably) participate International Physics Olympiad-2019 in Tel Aviv. However, for political reasons, he and the prospective Bangladesh team could not join IPhO-19 in Israel.
Shafayat had been arranging virtually every Workshop for Smartians from 2017 to 2020. Continuing from Mahadi Masnad’s tradition, he also used to include experiment demonstrations in Workshop classes. In most of the classes, one of two experiments regarding that topic was included to help further visualize the physics beyond equations.
Shafayat now studies at the Korea Advanced Institute of Science and Technology (class of 2024).
Mahmud Un Nobe
Mahmud Un Nobe represented the Bangladesh team twice at the International Olympiad of Astronomy and Astrophysics and achieved an honorable mention award there. He also won national/ regional prizes in virtually every olympiad in Bangladesh. Now he is an undergraduate student at Minerva Schools KGI. One thing is for sure, Mahmud Un Nobe is/was one of the most devoted souls for Smartians. He held numerous classes for Smartians. He even called students’ phone numbers one by one to let them know about the workshop because they didn’t have access to the internet, and couldn’t see Facebook posts.
Mahmud Un Nobe used to teach mostly Astronomy related lectures in Smartians. However, his contribution to Physics classes was also tremendous. He even taught kids Math Olympiad problems- a dexterous person he is. Mahmud Un Nobe still tries to work for Smartians when he is in Bangladesh for vacation- and his guideline is always with us.
Apart From them,
The contributions made by Rittik Basak (BUET, CSE), Mahin Mobarrat (BUET, WRE), Shadman Shakib Sayem (BUET, ChE) and others are highly regarded, specially in the early days.